Paper Published on March 1 in PLoS ONE Describes Method That May
Be Applicable for the Production of Clinical-Grade Human iPSCs

MADISON, Wis., March 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellular Dynamics International (CDI), the
world's largest producer of human tissue cells for drug discovery
and safety testing, today announced the publication of research
demonstrating an efficient and scalable method of creating DNA
integration-free, or footprint-free, induced pluripotent stem cells
(iPSCs) under a feeder-free condition using chemically defined
media. This method, published on March 1 in PLoS
ONE, will likely be valuable for the production of
clinical-grade human iPSCs.

Junying Yu, Senior Director, Advanced Development
Programs, and lead author of the paper, and her colleagues at CDI
improved efficiency over her previously published method that
resulted in exogenous DNA-free iPSCs by employing a cocktail
containing four small molecules and cultured in chemically defined
media free of feeder cells. The addition of small molecules
significantly improved episomal reprogramming efficiency.
Elimination of feeder cells and the use of chemically defined
media for both the derivation and culture of footprint-free iPSCs
bring the reprogramming technology one step closer to clinical
applications. In addition, the feeder cells represent a
source of variability. Eliminating feeder cells makes the
process more amenable to industrialization. The method was
successfully applied and optimized for several cell types including
human skin fibroblasts, adipose tissue-derived cells and cord blood
cells.

"This publication underscores CDI's commitment to industrialized
human biology," said Dr. Yu. "This method enables efficient, safe,
large scale derivation of iPSCs for research applications and sets
the stage for potential clinical use in the future."

"I wish to congratulate Dr. Yu on her most recent publication.
Her work brings us one step closer to the use of iPSC
technology in medical treatment," said Robert Palay, CEO and chairman of CDI.

Chris Parker, Chief Commercial Officer of CDI, added,
"Cellular Dynamics is focused on optimizing processes for
manufacturing human iPSCs and human differentiated cells for use by
the biomedical community. We have demonstrated that we can
manufacture human iPSCs and our human
iCell® Cardiomyocytes in the quantity, quality and
purity required by our pharmaceutical customers for their drug
discovery and toxicity testing programs. We have other cell
types, such as hepatocytes, neurons and blood vessel cells in
development for these uses as well. iPSCs and the human cells
derived from them have potential applicability as therapeutics.
However, concerns about exogenous DNA permanently
incorporated into the cells have limited development in this area.
More recently, several laboratories including our own have
developed methods that result in iPSCs that are free of exogenous
DNA. Although important advances on the path to iPSC-based
therapeutics have occurred, none of the methods developed to date
enable efficient production of human cells so that they could be
used as safe, efficacious and cost-effective therapeutics.
Work done in our laboratory and published in this article
demonstrates such a process."

About Cellular Dynamics International, Inc.

Cellular Dynamics International, Inc. (CDI) is a leading
developer of next-generation stem cell technologies for drug
development and personalized medicine applications. CDI
harnesses the power of pluripotent stem cells and their ability to
differentiate into any cell type for world-class drug development
tools. In addition, it is the leader in iPSC technology, the
production of pluripotent stem cell lines from adult tissue.
CDI was founded in 2004 by Dr. James Thomson, a pioneer in human
embryonic stem cell research at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. CDI's facilities are located in
Madison, Wisconsin. See www.cellulardynamics.com.